


Writing Into Motion

by GibbousLunation



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Dirty Dancing, Episode 10 spoilers, M/M, Mild Angst, Romance, alcohol mention, victor is head over heels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 06:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8787106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: Victor was a very decisive person, usually. He knew what he wanted and what he liked, and he took it. He likes wine, likes parties, and he loves the way Katsuki Yuuri bites his lip when their eyes meet across the dance floor. An episode 10 character study about the time Victor instantly fell in love at a party.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this super quick for my lovely friend Renee because we were both experiencing far too many emotions. One day I'll sit down and actually write something in depth for this show, one day. For now here's another fic about episode 10.

Victor had gone to the party without really thinking. His life had become a set of to do lists, of A to B formulaic responses and practiced ease. Victor went to the after party because it was what he was supposed to do, really.

He was getting old, he’d won gold at the Grand Prix again, and he didn’t know what he was doing anymore.

Losing one’s sense of direction was terrifyingly easy. Take one step forward and suddenly the ground behind was no longer visible and nothing looked familiar anymore. He’d taken his first step off the podium and suddenly he was far out at sea. Victor was old now, people whispered next year would be his final season. People expected things from him, had standards. Victor didn’t know how to surprise them anymore, he didn’t know where to go to find land.

Victor had always been a decisive person, impulsive in many ways and he knew what he wanted, what he liked. He liked the colour blue, he liked flowers, liked dogs more than cats. He’d liked skating the second his feet had touched the ice, he liked Maccachin, he liked Yakov in spite of the man’s inherent grumpiness. Victor had never been unsure of anything in his life, he wasn’t sure if he knew how to be.

But he’d lost his way somewhere along the line, and it terrified him. It made him feel empty, hollowed out in his bones. Old.

The ice was his canvas, his art was the fluidity of his body, the emotion and passion he poured into every aspect of himself, the sparks that curled against his ribcage and flew into the rink through his fingertips. Each performance was an expression of a different piece of who Victor Nikiforov was, who he’d been, who he dreamed he could be. They were an extension of his self, a story unfolding around him; the golds were just a happy bonus.

Lately, his canvas was muddied. Too lined with practiced perfection, too predictable. He hated the person he saw in the ice lately. The person who went through the motions to get a gold, but didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. His last routine had driven a final icepick into his soul— love, he’d said, but what did he know about love. Everyone he knew loved him for what he could do, for what he represented. His parents, his friends, they were all looking for something he wasn’t sure he had within him. He’d lost himself, somewhere. Maybe long ago, and he was only now realizing.

‘What will you do when you retire?’ they’d ask. ‘I don’t know’ he’d reply.

‘I don’t know what else I even can do,’ he’d think.

He hadn’t wanted to go to the party afterwards, but it was just what people did. He couldn’t say no, not when it was an excuse to ignore the looming nothing cloying against his lungs.

Besides, he liked Chris. Chris was easy company despite his competitive, flirty nature. He was easy going, didn’t ask for anything more than Victor was ready to give. He liked wine too.

Apparently, so did Yuuri.

Victor had never really noticed him before, if he were to be honest. Yuuri kept to himself mostly, stayed quiet, and his performances were always shaky. Wooden. He obviously stayed too in his own head, and it showed. For most of the night he’d noticed Yuuri’s familiar dark hair lurking in the corner of the room, alone, lines of anxious stress written all over him. Poor boy’s coach had probably dragged him along to mingle, and the crowded room didn’t seem to have agreed with him.

But, as Victor noted with surprise now, Yuuri was mingling quite well. A telltale inebriated blush coated his cheeks as he stumbled from conversation to conversation, but most notably, he was smiling. A loopy grin split his typically tight and gloomy expression, and Victor decided immediately he liked the way his eyes lit up along with it.

And then Yuuri had started dancing. Victor expected sloppiness, typical drunk loose limbs that ended in embarrassment and someone getting carried to their hotel room. He expected someone to grab Yuuri before he embarrassed himself, but his coach seemed to be settling in with an easy acceptance. He hadn’t expected the jolt of surprise that rang through the entire room, the stunned silence and awe that struck everyone nearly simultaneously as Yuuri cheered loudly to only himself. He hadn’t expected Yuuri to rip off his suit jacket with a surprising amount of confidence and hit the dancefloor. He also hadn’t expected Yuuri to be _good_.

And god, he was good.

His hips rolled sinuously to the beat of whatever song was playing, his smile faded into a dangerous smirk as his dark eyes smouldered. Victor was captivated, hypnotized by the stretch and pull of Yuuri’s white dress shirt against his shoulder blades, the obvious flex of his thighs beneath his dark pants. He liked the way Yuuri dragged his hand through his sweat soaked hair, he liked the way his steps were slow and sure. He _loved_ the way Yuuri bit his lip when his gaze met Victor’s.

Everyone was staring now, with various looks of surprise and concern, some laced with horror but god, who wouldn’t? Yuuri roped Chris into the mix, at first innocently but then, it was Chris. Nothing stayed innocent. Somehow the twist and pull of Yuuri’s hips as he unbuttoned his shirt was the most erotic thing Victor had ever seen. And then they were pole dancing, sweet lord.

But god, Yuuri was good at that too.

Victor was certain this wasn’t the same Yuuri that missed his jumps, that hid in corners and kept his head down. This Yuuri was wolfish, laughing easily and freely and so intensely fluid and sensual. No trace of tense anxiety crossed against the graceful twist of his legs through the air. No furrowed lines muddled his expression. This wasn’t the same Yuuri he’d seen in competition, but Victor decided, he liked this Yuuri.

“Yuri! You have to dance with—dance off! We have to have a dance off, for Victor! Whoever wins, gets to keep him.” Yuuri was breathless, somehow, he’d gotten his shirt mostly back on, but his tie was nowhere to be found. Victor swallowed roughly.

“This kids crazy, hey Victor?” Yuri grumped at him, sending a dark look at anyone giggling his direction. Victor shrugged, a smile pulling at his lips.

“Victor!” And Yuuri was crashing into him, arms wrapped tightly against him and, oh. No, Yuuri still hadn’t found his pants had he. “Victor, I’m going to win this dance off. And if I do you’ll come back to Japan with me, won’t you? If I win this, you have to come be my coach! Please be my coach Victor!” Yuuri was warm against him, even through Victor’s layers of clothing he was intensely aware of every part of him that touched. Yuuri’s eyes sparkled, brown and dark, his panting breaths brushing against Victor’s neck but his smile…

Victor was a very decisive person, usually. He knew what he wanted and what he liked. He’d loved skating since he’d stepped on the ice back home in Russia as a little kid, he’d seen the white curling lines like they were poetry, he’d seen the frozen blue as a blank page waiting to be filled in. He’d lost his inspiration somewhere along the line, lost his love for the ice along with it. Victor Nikiforov didn’t know where he was going.

“Victor, please be my coach,” Yuri breathed, his grin slipping into something softer and Victor’s heart did something complicated. A skip-beat lurch in his chest. He wanted suddenly, to wrap his arms around Yuuri and pull him closer, to press his thumbs against the full cheeked smile Yuuri gave him so warmly. He liked this, he realized. Victor Nikiforov knew what he liked; he liked Maccachin, he liked his long hair before he cut it off, he liked the ocean, he liked listening to his mother sing when he was small. He also liked the way Yuuri smiled at him, he liked the way Yuuri’s earnest sincerity rolled off him in waves, he liked the idea of letting this Yuuri, the one with the smirking confidence and passion, shine.

He liked the idea of helping the world see this Yuuri, the magnetizing and wild Katsuki Yuuri, the way Victor was seeing him now.  

He nodded, his tongue stuck against his teeth as he fought the blush that already warmed his cheeks. Yuuri was something incredible, he realized. He was cute, insanely attractive, friendly, and he wrote symphonies with his body that overwhelmed Victor entirely. Watching Yuuri even know, breakdancing –when did Yuuri learn how to do that with his hips?— against the blonde Yuri, it was enticing. His shirt slid upwards as he displayed his impressive strength, it took all of Victor’s willpower to look away from the sweat licked patch of skin that showed.

He was…. Delicious.

Victor didn’t know what he was doing, only that he offered to dance with Yuuri shortly after. Only that the firm glide of Yuuri’s palm against his thigh was the best thing he’d ever felt in his short life. Only that Yuuri’s laugh was so honest and pure Victor nearly felt like crying. Only that when Yuuri’s arm wrapped around his hip, it felt like that day back in Russia, and right then and there, amidst a dance floor full of competing skaters and friends and horrified onlookers, he decided he never wanted to lose that feeling ever again.

The lights around them swam, haloing the mess of sweat damp hair flying around Yuuri’s breathless grinning face. The simple beauty of the moment, of the music Yuuri made with his dancing and the feel of his warm, drunk fingers laced with Victors, made his heart nearly stop in place. Victor had never felt more unsure than he did wrapped up against Yuri, their palms were pressing so close he could feel Yuuri’s measured heartbeat tap against his pounding one. His head was a mess of shock and bewilderment but he felt calm, his feet floated on the floor but he still stumbled against Yuuri’s confident pull and sway. He felt like he was falling, and Yuuri had caught him before he’d hit the ground.

“You’re beautiful,” Yuuri whispered in his ear happily, like he was discussing the weather, like his words weren’t full of so much unspoken meaning Victor felt loose limbed around it. He didn’t say it the way other people usually did, nothing fake flashed in his warm eyes. No hint that he was looking for a response at all. But Yuuri had singe handedly shaped Victor’s world around him in the expanse of his sigh, and Victor couldn’t help but offer him the smallest, most earnest truth in return.

“You are too,” Victor whispered back. “Beautiful, that is.”

Yuuri’s smile was palpable as they twisted around the room. Warm hands curled tighter around his, two heartbeats pressed into one and Victor knew then, a drop of cool clarity against the wild heat in his gut. He would follow Katsuki Yuuri to the ends of the Earth.

Dance-off or not, he would follow Yuuri.

It helped, however, that Yuuri won.

He’d been expecting Yuuri to pounce on him the next day, perhaps. Or shyly sidle up next to him as Victor announced to the world his plans to leave skating to coach. But Yuuri kept surprising him, always surprising. His eyes sought out a familiar dark mop of hair amongst the crowd, and he felt his expression light up like a child being given the greatest gift. But Yuuri ducked down, pulled his shoulders upwards like a shield, and turned away. Leaving Victor confused and empty in the distance.

Maybe he’d imagined all of it, he’d had a few drinks himself it was possible he’d played up the heat of the moment. That he’d over exaggerated the skill of Yuuri’s timed movements and half lidded eyes. Maybe the spark of golden fire in Yuuri’s eyes had been a trick of the light. Maybe Yuuri had meant to use him, like everyone else, to inspire their own fight and finally remove Victor from the podium. From the one last home he was desperately clinging to.

Victor wasn’t typically the type to wallow, but he’d lost his path and re-lost it too soon. He’d met a boy with the most honest eyes he’d ever seen, the most sinful moves he’d ever witnessed, and the most freely given happiness he’d ever received and left with nothing. It was as if he’d touched bliss, experienced true happiness just for a moment and his world had shifted two feet to the left over night. He couldn’t fall into his regular routine, his dance becoming too painful, his canvas laced with loss and loneliness. Yakov snorted derisively at him after practice and Victor knew he saw it too. He looked up Katsuki Yuuri online, looking for proof he existed as more than a stiffly balled up pile of nerves. Looking for the Yuuri that showed him true passion, who’d shaken his world apart with a lopsided grin.

Instead, as he was finding Yuuri was prone to do, he’d found a surprise.

Victor was a decisive person, he knew what he wanted and took it. So when his thumb hovered over a YouTube link, exclaiming that Yuuri was performing his routine for practice with 100,000 views just in the past twelve hours, he wondered. He paused the video, skated a lap and thought about his path, where he wanted to go, who he was. He thought of the Victor that sought expression, sought to show the world love and beauty. He thought of Yuuri who’d only sought to show the world happiness.

He took his skates off, one at a time, undoing the laces all the way to the bottom, and he pressed play.

He bought a plane ticket an hour later, and it felt like finding home. 

 


End file.
